Page 1 of Fake Fiancée Bear's Enemies-to-Lovers
Chapter One
Madeline
“Why do you have to be such a dick about it?” I shout.
Firefighter Lucas Adams says quietly, “My tone hasn’t changed once, Miss Charles. You’re asking me to change something that isn’t going to change.”
“You just don’t give a damn that all these single parents and their kids have nowhere to stay and nowhere to grow until they’re self-sufficient. You just don’t care!”
He looks at me and sighs, which is a whole hell of a lot more maddening than if he’d yelled at me. “I’ll let you calm down before I respond to that,” he says. He turns and starts for the door. It pisses me off that he dismisses me like that, of course. It pisses me off more at the moment, though, that when he turns, the fact that he has a perfect upper body on top of a perfect lower body is very obvious.
Damn it, why couldn’t he have a boring, flabby, flat butt?
But he doesn’t. He has a perfect butt. Damn it.
“Hey!” I shout. He turns around and looks at me with a rage-inducing look of longsuffering patience. “Why don’t you say what you’re going to fucking say, you jerk?”
His eyes narrow and for the first time I see anger behind them. “I didn’t ask to fill in for the fire inspector. I’m used to fighting fires, not inspecting buildings.”
I scoff at that. “Well, I can tell.”
“So, when a spoiled little brat says that I don’t care about single parents and their kids having nowhere to stay, I have a response. Until you’ve seen what it’s like to find the body of a mother who died trying and failing to protect her baby from the fire, shut your mouth. Just shut your mouth and build the place in a way that protects the single parents and kids who will live here.”
I feel slapped in the face.
No. I feel punched in the gut.
I feel stunned. That’s for sure.
I stare at him in shock and I can’t come up with words to speak. He turns around and walks out. I just stare. What he said is kind of a perfect drop the mic moment, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why I’m so stunned. I mean, I’m stunned and I’m also about as pissed off as a girl can be! Obviously, I don’t want to make the place unsafe! Obviously, I don’t want to risk the lives of the people I’m trying to help.
How dare he suggest otherwise?
How dare he?
I rush out and see him about ten yards from his fire truck. I run to him and grab his arm, whirling him around. “I don’t know who you think…” My voice falters. It’s not because his face is handsome although you better believe his face is handsome. It’s because I recognize Norman Brannock walking toward us. Norman Brannock and Harold King.
The estate lawyers.
“Please pretend that we’re engaged, Lucas,” I whisper desperately.
“What?”
“Please. I know you hate me and I know that you think I’m a horrible person but please pretend…”
“I don’t hate you and I don’t…”
“Please, Lucas. Just pretend we’re engaged.”
It’s too late. They’re here. I keep myself from breaking down into tears. I don’t want to do it in front of those men and most definitely not in front of Lucas. “Maddy,” Norman says, “We’re here to?—”
I whirl around and point at him. “It’s Miss Charles, Mr. Brannock. I’m your client. You and Mr. King work for my family. I’m not a child for you to call by her childhood nickname.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Charles,” he says. There’s no way on Earth he could possibly be less sorry. “But we’re here to make sure that you stillwillbe our client. Next month is the deadline and you haven’t returned our calls.”
“I told you I’m engaged.”
“We need more than you telling us, Miss Charles.”